When to up Ball Python feed?

[Smaug]

Hi, I am fairly new to reptiles and I have a question about my ball python. Lily is a six month old normal and she weighs 323 grams( as of last Friday). Also, she is approximately as long as her 20 gal tank. I feed her a live mouse every week because she won't eat frozen and none of pet shops anywhere near here sell rats. So I am wondering when she'll be big enough to eat two mice?

[jmcrook]

At that age/size you can generally offer prey that is about 15% of the snakes weight. So really it depends on how big the mice are that you have available. Bummer you can't get rats, that will be a lot of mice to feed an eventually larger BP.


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[Zincubus]

All my Royals are good feeders on defrost frozen although a couple will only eat every 10 days rather than the normal 7 days ... anyways 2 of the 5 will not even look at a second mouse .... the others will happily take two maybe not 3 though ...


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[Hannahshissyfix]

First thing I'd do is definitely switch to ft so it won't be an issue to keep bulk appropriate sized rats in the freezer. It being that small will be much easier to switch than waiting another year. I have never had issues switching a baby that small so if you want to share exactly how you've gone about trying then maybe I can give more tips. The only snake I have had issues switching is a pied I bought that had been on live until she was an adult so it's taken me another 2 years to get her to take frozen. Another part of the problem that you'll want to avoid with staying on mice, many of them will want to eat 1 and then not take another so growth will be next to nothing after a while so it's worth it to get them switched to rats so the 1 meal they take is an appropriate size.